Lizzie didn’t have to; she could already smell the joints of meat roasting in Mountford’s shop window, and it made her mouth water. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘my stomach thinks my throat’s cut.’
They couldn’t afford a meat sandwich because it cost sixpence, and anyway it was Friday, so instead they bought a cone of baked potatoes for a penny each, with a slice of bread dipped in gravy for Nuala. ‘Are you sure she should be eating that?’ Maura asked.
Lizzie wasn’t really certain, but she shrugged and said, ‘Surely eating meat doesn’t count when you’re only a baby?’
‘I don’t know,’ Maura said. ‘But then, sure, she has to eat something.’
Nuala certainly seemed to enjoy her slice of dipped bread. She ate every bit and all told didn’t make much mess at all. Pete finished his cone of potatoes and licked his fingers and said, ‘I’m thirsty now,’ and Lizzie realised she was too.
‘Have we enough for drinks?’ Maura asked.
‘Not if we want sweets,’ Lizzie said. ‘But we can get threepence worth of over-ripe fruit that might cure the thirst, and still have money for some sweets too.’
Everyone agreed with that suggestion and they wandered down to the bottom where the cheaper barrows were and got some bruised apples, soft oranges and bananas going brown. They demolished them in quick order, sitting on a bench by the horse trough near St Martin’s, where Pete was entertained by the trams that came rattling up Moor Street.
Then they made their way to the sweet stall, where they pored over the goodly selection on sale. Gobstoppers lasted forever, but pear drops tasted better, and toffee was nice but would make them thirsty again. Eventually they bought a stick of liquorice at a halfpenny each, and two penn’orth of pear drops. Nuala had fallen asleep in the pram with her thumb in her mouth, so she didn’t have to be considered as they shared the sweets out among themselves.
‘We’ll have to be off soon,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s a tidy step home and time must be getting on.’
‘Aye, I’ll have to get Mammy’s fish,’ Maura said. ‘If it’s gone down enough in price.’
Before that, though, Pete was enchanted by the day-old chicks a man had for sale by Nelson’s Square. They did look sweet, like little yellow fluff balls, and Pete was all for taking one home. Lizzie and Maura had a hard job to convince him that the chick would grow to a hen, and hens couldn’t be kept in a back-to-back house with no garden.
Pete had reached the mutinous stage when Maura spotted the man walking round with the tray of mechanical toys and successfully distracted his attention. He watched the toys jumping around the tray in open-mouthed astonishment, and Lizzie stayed with him while Maura got a huge parcel of kippers for her mother for one and six. She stored it at the bottom of the pram and they set off home. Pete’s legs were tired, and Lizzie tucked him in beside the fish, and even though the hill up to High Street was steep and she was puffed at the top of it, she left Pete where he was. It was a long way home, she thought, for legs as short as his.
All the way back, while Nuala slumbered, the two girls told Peter tales about the Bull Ring on a Saturday. ‘It’s better then,’ Maura said. ‘Late afternoon and evening’s the best time, and the food is nearly given away, my mammy says.’
‘Aye, but that’s not all,’ Lizzie said. ‘They have stilt walkers and a man in chains – all tied up, he is, and you wouldn’t think how he’d get out of it, but he always does.’
‘Aye, when the money in the hat is a pound or more,’ Maura reminded her. ‘And there’s a fire-eater and a man that lies on a bed of nails and lets other people walk on him.’
‘And others play music and sing,’ Lizzie said. ‘And a feller called Jimmy Jesus preaches from the Bible. He’s got long white hair and a beard and that’s why he’s called Jesus.’
Pete’s mouth dropped open in astonishment as he drank in all the two girls told him, scarcely able to believe it was true. ‘We’ll take you one day, Pete,’ Lizzie promised. ‘If your mammy says it’s all right, you can come with me and Maura. We’ll stay till the Sally Army brass band comes marching down Corporation Street. Later they give all the tramps soup at the Citadel. Jimmy Jesus too, so my daddy said anyway.’
‘Oh, they do,’ Maura said. ‘It’s great down the Bull Ring, isn’t it?’
‘Nowhere like it,’ Lizzie agreed. ‘And it was worth it today, even if I’m never allowed out again for a whole year.’
‘Och, course you will be,’ Maura said confidently. ‘They’ll just shout a bit, that’s all.’
Lizzie didn’t answer, for Maura didn’t know how her Mammy could go on, not to mention her Auntie Bridie, and whatever Maura said, she knew she was going to catch it.
She said goodbye to Maura at her door and went along Bell Barn Road to collect the rations before she dared go home. ‘How’s your aunt, dear?’ Mrs Morcroft asked, and Lizzie realised with a jolt she hadn’t thought about Auntie Rose and the reason for her jaunt to the Bull Ring all day. She wasn’t terribly worried – after all, women had babies all the time, and even though her gran said she’d had to have the doctor, it didn’t really mean she was deadly sick – so she said quite cheerfully, ‘All right, I suppose, Mrs Morcroft, but I don’t know, we’ve been out all day.’
She was more concerned when she got to Rose’s house and found no one in. She left the children in the pram outside and pounded upstairs. The bed was stripped and had a big stain across it, and there was bed linen soiled with blood thrown into a corner. Alarmed, Lizzie ran downstairs and pushed the pram across the road to her own house, but that was also empty, so then she ran, pushing the pram before her, past Pickering’s to her grandma’s.
She lifted Pete down and hauled Nuala from her straps, suddenly aware that not only was the little girl sopping wet, but that something was seeping from her nappy on to Lizzie’s dress as she balanced Nuala on her hip to open the entry door.
They were all there, Kathy, Maggie and Carmel, and they all turned at her entrance. ‘Where in the name of God have you been?’ Kathy demanded.
‘D-down the Bull Ring. Grandma told me to take the weans.’
‘She meant you to take them all,’ Kathy said. ‘Dear God, girl, you’re not stupid, and I’d keep out of Bridie’s way if I were you. She’s been spitting feathers all day, and Sheelagh’s done nothing but moan.’
‘Aye, as if we hadn’t enough on our plate,’ Maggie said bitterly. ‘It wouldn’t have hurt Bridie to look to her own weans the once, for she was worse than useless here, and Lizzie at least kept the wee ones away for the day.’
‘What d’you mean?’ Lizzie cried, suddenly frightened. ‘What’s happened?’
Kathy glanced at her sisters and then at her daughter, and said, ‘Rose has been sent to the hospital, the doctor thought it best.’
‘Will she…she will be all right, won’t she?’
‘Course she will,’ Kathy said, but she didn’t meet Lizzie’s eyes as she said it.
Lizzie knew her mother was worried and wasn’t sure if Rose was going to be all right at all, and she hoped Peter and Nuala weren’t aware of it. But both had picked up on the tension, and Nuala said, ‘Mammy, want Mammy,’ and began to wail.
‘Och, there’s no need to cry,’ Kathy said, lifting Nuala into her arms. ‘Your mammy will be as right as rain, you’ll see. Grandma Sullivan has gone with her, so there’s no need to fret at all, and you’re both to come home with me tonight.’
She set Nuala on her feet again, wiped her hand down her apron and asked Lizzie, ‘Hasn’t that child been changed all day?’
‘No,’ Lizzie said. ‘I didn’t come back